Breaking Point

Chapter ?? - The Beginning of Fatherhood
         The car ride back home was long, the morning traffic had packed the streets and school busses were everywhere.
          Remy, who was riding passenger, glanced over his shoulder and noticed the two boys both fast asleep in their car seats. He noticed Demon was in the car too, but attempted to ignore him as he was now positive it was a hallucination and the internet said that ignoring it would make it go away.
          "Aaron," he said, quietly but urgently, "did we just fuck up?"
          Yes!
          Aaron shifted in his seat and Remy noticed him look in the rear-view mirror at the boys. "Where else would they have gone?"

          There was complete silence in the car until they got home, partially because Remy didn't want to wake the kids but also because he just couldn't find the correct words to say. He was terrified. He'd never admit this to Aaron but he was feeling drained, both mentally and physically.
          Demon continued to make his presence known today, easily sliding ignorant or degrading comments in between sentences. Remy wanted to tell Aaron about the situation badly but was afraid that it would just make him sound crazy. This made him guilty, it felt like he was keeping a secret from him.
          You should tell him about me... maybe he'll finally get rid of you.
          Remy ignored the comment but it had made him feel even worse. The comment was ignorant but he knew it wasn't wrong.
          "Babe," Aaron said, seemingly appearing out of thin air beside him, "are you okay? You are spacing out... hardcore."
          He's just nutso.
          "I'm fine," Remy replied, pecking him on the lips, "just thinking about a lot."
          "The boys are both still sleeping, since they don't have beds yet I just left them in the car seats."
          Father of the year.
          Remy started to react to this comment, forgetting Demon wasn't actually there, but Aaron started talking before he could open his mouth.
          "Morgan said she was going to handle all of the fostering paperwork; did she tell you if we needed to send her anything?"
          The names of people who could be actual parents would be amazing.
          This comment came far too fast and sent a shiver down Remy's spine.
          "She was zooming around so much in the judge's office I thought she was going to stroke out. She hadn't mentioned anything to me while we were there but I'll ask her."
          Remy pulled out his phone to call Morgan but saw that she had already sent him a list. He skimmed down it quickly, shocked by how long it actually was.
          He finished and forwarded it to Aaron.
          "What is a character reference?" he asked, looking from his phone directly into Remy's eyes.
          "They are an outdated and completely irrelevant part of any recruiting process. They are letters written by friends and family members, usually for recommendation for a specific emotion-heavy employment role. Apparently, they use them to," he used air quotes, "screen potential foster parents."
          "Who would write us something like that?"
          "My mom probably wouldn't mind doing one, I'd imagine we'd need more than one though."
          "I could ask Pastor Hughes."
          The OG psycho and the main blasphemer! Good choices!
          Remy felt his blood pressure rise. He couldn't understand why this was happening, he isn't crazy, he doesn't use drugs... why is Demon tormenting him?
          "Are you sure you are okay? You are really quiet today," Aaron moved closer to Remy, slightly bending to meet his eye level, "you know what's good for stress right...."
          Children!
          Remy smiled at him, "I'm just tired. I promise."
          Liar.
         "You should lay down, you've had one hell of a day already today," Aaron said, gently placing his hand on Remy's back, "I can make sure the kids are okay when they wake up."
         "I think I have a better idea."
         Remy pulled Aaron by his shirt tail closer to him. He then, rather forcefully, pressed his lips onto Aaron's.
         "Oh," Aaron said, "I- I like this idea."
         Aaron locked lips with him and slowly pushed him into their bedroom, not once even attempting to pull his lips away. Once in the room, he pulled away as he pushed him down onto the bed with a little bit of force. Remy noticed a sadistic grin on Aaron's face.
         "Oh?" Remy breathed, pleasantly surprised.
         Aaron lost his grin quickly and his face fell soft, "I didn't hurt you did I?"
         "No, no... not at all," Remy replied, "I just wasn't expecting that."
         "I should've asked first, I'm sorry."
         Remy chuckled, still laying flat on his back, "that's what I was talking about. You're so cute and innocent. Just... pure. The force was just something I wasn't expecting. I liked it though."
         Aaron's shoulders fell and his demeanor changed.
         "Are you upset?" Remy asked, noticing the change immediately, "I love your innocence."
         "I am not... pure... Remy."
         Remy acknowledged the anger in his voice and realized that he may have said the wrong thing and ruined the moment. Aaron extended a hand and pulled him to his feet, Remy looked at his shirt as Aaron went to walk around him.
         "I'm sor-", Remy started, but before he could finish his apology, Aaron had pushed him backwards against the wall and placed his hand around his throat. He was surprised to learn that Aaron's hand was able to encompass a third of his total neck.
         Remy inhaled slowly and looked up from Aaron's hand to his face. Looking directly into Aaron's brown eyes, he saw fire. A fire fueled by both anger and excitement. Aaron smiled as his grip became tighter on Remy's windpipe and he grinned again.
         "Oh," he breathed as he felt his jeans become tighter, "...oh?"
         "Am I still pure?" he huffed through gritted teeth.
         Remy put his hand on top of Aaron's and looked up at him with big eyes. This was a version of him that he hadn't seen in all of the time they had been together. It was something that he thought about often but obviously had thought wasn't possible.
         "Maybe not pure," he started, ripping Aaron's hand off his neck and grabbing him by the shirt, "but definitely inexperienced and still cute."
         He pushed Aaron backwards onto the bed and climbed on top of him.
         "You see, the thing about the neck is," he pulled his hand up and put it on Aaron's neck, "you do not want to cut off the air..."
         He gently squeezed the sides of his neck and bent down close to his mouth, "you want to restrict the blood flow to the brain."
         Aaron exhaled slowly which made Remy even more excited, he could tell that even though the tables have turned and he took charge that the fire was still very much there. He saw it coming before Aaron had moved even an inch but he wanted it to happen. He left himself become limp.
         Aaron must've felt him let his muscles loose as he leaped into action. He quickly sat up and grabbed Remy's waist but before he was able to pick him up, they heard a very loud thud. Remy's eyes searched the room until he found that the lamp, which had a solid metal base, had fallen off the nightstand.
         "Fuck." Remy said, again looking into Aaron's eyes.
         "That sounded like a gunshot."
         Before Remy could form a response, the twins began to wail. Aaron shot straight up without regard of Remy and he found himself toppling over the side of the bed onto the floor. Aaron was already out of the room by the time Remy was able to pull himself up off the floor.
         He met up with Aaron as he was unfastening the seatbelts on the car seats. He pulled one twin out and handed him to Remy, who put him on his shoulder and began shushing him. As soon as the toddler realized he was being held, he stopped crying.
         He looked at Aaron, "this is going to sound terrible...."
         Aaron looked at him.
         "Which one am I holding?"
         Aaron looked down at the toddler in his hands, he too had stopped crying. "Oh God."
         Fathers of the year!
         Remy hadn't noticed whether Demon had followed them into the room or not. It was becoming harder for him to even remember that he wasn't actually there.

          They spent the better part of the next hour and a half trying to figure out which twin was which. Both of them were becoming very frustrated.
          As Aaron had started to become frantic about the situation, there was a knock at the door. Remy walked very carefully with the twin, who was now sleeping on his shoulder, to the door and pulled it open to see Morgan.
         "Aw! You already look like a dad!" she exclaimed, smiling ear to ear.
         "We just realized that we have no idea which twin is which." Remy replied, trying to make it seem like a joke while also being completely serious.
         "Let me see his face," Morgan replied, walking around Remy to get a view of the toddler's face, "this one is Nikolas."
         "So that must mean this one is Anthony!" Aaron replied, looking into the child's eyes with pure joy.
         Remy lowered his voice, "how do you know?"
         "Anthony has a dark freckle directly on his philtrum."
         "The fuck is a philtrum?"
         "It's the area between your nose and your upper lip. The little one on your shoulder doesn't have it so he must be Nikolas."
         Remy didn't want to move out of fear of waking the sleeping child in his arms but he also could no longer feel his upper arm. He very slowly pulled the small body from his chest but before he could move him to the other shoulder Morgan had grabbed him and held him in the same position.
         "Thank you," Remy said, "he's a big boy, isn't he?"
         "They are both perfect," Morgan said, "they are big and strong... and brave."
         Her tone fell towards the end of her sentence and her hazel eyes got heavy.
         "The police think the children may have been awake when she was killed," she said.
         Remy watched a tear fall from her face. He felt bad, he hadn't even thought about the fact that they were in the house when their mother was murdered.
         "He was so drunk he didn't even care if his own babies would've saw him kill their mother," there was anger in her voice now, "he shot her and then sat on the bed beside her until he heard the police sirens..."
          She huffed and clicked her tongue, "if he wasn't already dying in that hospital bed, I'd go and kill the son of a bitch myself."
         "He's not dead?" Aaron said, "Hughes said he was mangled up in the car accident running from the police."
         "Mangled, yes," she said, sounded annoyed, "in a coma, yes... but dead... no."
         That word echoed in Remy's ears. Coma. He started to hear it again.
          Remy. Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy!
         He closed his eyes forcefully and waited for it to stop. He wasn't sure if Aaron and Morgan were talking but he also didn't care. The constant screaming of his name in his own head was giving him a migraine.
                   Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy! Remy!
          "Babe! REMY!" he heard, and he opened his eyes in horror. Aaron was standing in front of him, now without a child in his arms. He looked over his shoulder and saw Morgan now had both of them, one on each shoulder.
          "Are you sure you are okay?" he asked, placing his hand on his cheek and gazing deeply into his eyes, "please talk to me."
          Remy was angry, he couldn't tell him why he was upset because it wouldn't make sense. It didn't even make sense to him.
          "I am fine," he said, pushing Aaron's hand away, "I told you; I am fine."
          Aaron looked offended that his hand was pushed away, "I need a drink."
          Morgan must've noticed that there was something deeper as she quickly changed the subject, "I invited a couple people over here tonight for dinner."
          Aaron, who had been walking towards the liquor cabinet, stopped dead in his tracks, "who?"
          "Oh, it's just a few people who you may need to ask to give you character references," she said, avoiding eye contact.
          "But who, Morgan?" Remy pressed, knowing that she wasn't being entirely truthful.
          She pursed her lips and looked down at Anthony's face, he was sleeping soundly with his head pressed up against her shoulder, "just about everybody you invited to your wedding."
          "What?!" Aaron exploded, seemingly having forgotten there were two sleeping children in the room, "Our wedding invites numbered in the triple digits!"
          "I know." Morgan replied with attitude, "I sent them out."
          Aaron grabbed a glass and poured a dark liquid into it, drank the entire glass in one gulp and looked at Remy.
          "What do you need us to do Morgan?" Remy asked, looking at her to avoid staring into Aaron's angry eyes.
          "Network," she said, "not only for the foster parent application but for if you eventually want to adopt these babies. They can, and will, ask any person either one of you have ever met to give them information about you... both good and bad things."
          "Anybody?" Aaron asked, and Remy knew where he was going.
          "Yes, Aaron... anybody." Morgan replied and she looked at the floor, "I invited your father."
          Without any response, Aaron walked away. Remy watched as he quietly placed his used glass in the sink and walked into the hallway.
          "Remy," Morgan said, looking into his eyes, "this is so important. This dinner tonight is so important."
          "I understand that," Remy started, but was cut off.
          "It may have been a bad idea," she said as she looked to the floor again, "but I also invited Judge Gardi."
          "Why?"
          "It's her case. She's the one who decides if you are granted a foster license."
          "Is that... legal?"
          Morgan looked at him with a blank expression on her face. Remy had known Morgan for over 20 years now and he knew very well that that look meant that it wasn't. He also knew that because it wasn't legal and because of the situation, Gardi was definitely going to be in attendance tonight.
          "Go talk to him. Get him on board. Not only will this be good for me as a social worker but," she looked down at the sleeping children on her shoulders, "I can't stand the thought of these two going somewhere where they might be put in danger."
          "Morgan..." Remy started, "what if I don't want this?"
          "What?" her head shot up like he had just insulted her, "you don't want to help these babies?"
          "That's not what I meant."
          "Then go tell your husband to get his head out of his ass and get ready to have dinner. I've done the work!"
          "What do you mean?" Remy didn't understand what work she could've done in the couple of hours since they left the courthouse.
          "I've already invited everybody. Phone calls started the second I walked out of the courthouse. Greg Hughes, his wife, and the church secretary have been also making calls all morning. I've called a caterer; they are probably already on their way here. Your house is clean, it always is. You have the space to do this here," she looked at Remy and smiled, "you literally built this house with the intention of this place being the house to be at during holiday dinners. Get those extensions into the dining room table and make yourself presentable! You got this!"
          Remy smiled at her and walked away; he knew where Aaron was but he needed to go somewhere else first. He made his way through the kitchen, into the hallway, and beelined for his bathroom. Once inside, he locked the door behind him.
          He looked at the vanity hung on the wall over the sink. Above the lights was a small space, probably about 3 inches from the wall, that you could hide things in. He reached in and pulled out a full bottle of Dex.
          "This is serious," he told himself, "if I didn't need to impress people and make myself look good I wouldn't be doing it."
          He sat the bottle on the counter, used the faucet to fill a small cup with water, then opened the bottle and pulled out two pills. He popped them into his mouth and chased them with water without even looking at them.
          I thought you were done with those.
          "This is a special occasion."
          Anything is a special occasion if you make it one.
          "Why can't I get rid of you?"
          I, whether you want to accept it or not, AM you.
          "I'm not an asshole."
          Do you think I'm an asshole?
          "You aren't real."

          Remy found Aaron in their bedroom, staring at the ceiling. He stood at the doorway and just watched as his husband continued to explore his own thoughts.
          "I can't believe she invited my father."
          "If any part of the system even begins to think that you and him do not have a solid relationship they are going to call on him to give a statement about you and I... at least this way we can attempt to get him to give us a good recommendation if they do."
          "You think that he'll give us any sort of positive recommendation? Inviting him to dinner will just reinforce the idea that we are happy together and further his delusion that I've abandoned God."
          Remy could tell that Aaron was going to cry. He, once again, felt like a burden to him.
          "I think that once your dad learns that it was Pastor Hughes that asked us to do this he will change his views."
          Aaron sat up and a tear ran down his cheek. He sniffled, "you do?"
          "I really do," Remy replied, wiping the tear from his cheek and gently sitting down on his lap, "and even if that doesn't change his mind, I've seen the way you light up around those babies."
          He gave Aaron a kiss.
          "You were meant to be a father."